Wizards
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
This is perhaps the most famous line uttered by a Wizard. It is revered. It is remembered. It will likely make you sob as a testament to what makes us uniquely human.
In the world of FLOLAS, Magic is very real. It's based upon the four cardinal elements, the two binaries, as well as nuanced, mixed, and archaic forms. Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Light and Shadow. Ice, Lightning, Sand, Nebulae, and Blood. There are schools, colleges, and cults devoted to each; but even still, magic users are rare. Most people in the world of FLOLAS live their entire lives and never see magic. Some may not even know it exists at all.
The White Mages of FLOLAS are scientists and technologists. They wear white lab coats instead of cloaks or robes, and do not seem to have any magic powers. Instead, they focus on understanding the Universe as it truly is and relaying that knowledge to others. It is the most powerful of all magicks because it is an unyielding process, ongoing for millenia, undeterred and unbroken by time and strife, bursting from the depths of consciousness and careening into the material; a bright ray of humanity. So yeah, IT guys are Wizards n’ stuff…
Wizards cast spells and drink water to restore their mana.
IT guys fix computers and I, personally, drink a ton of water every day.
I'm now working on FLOLAS Page 50, which is kinda insane. I started drawing this comic, in earnest, ten years ago. It was 2013 and I was 29 years old. Sitting in my apartment, before I had a girlfriend or even a cat, alone with only a bunch of books and video games, an art degree and most of another one in computer animation, a wacom tablet and a computer - the same Wacom tablet I still use by the way - I just kinda started drawing the dang thing.
I had written a draft of an idea in college, in a purple spiral bound notebook, which I still have. It was very different then, probably unrecognizable. There wasn't a lot of drawings, just handwritten prose. I plan on going into more detail on the Summer Solstice blog this year because that will be the official ten year point. It does kinda blow my mind though. Ten years, wtf. Speaking of Gandalf, the LotR movies were filmed, edited, special effected and released in far less than ten years. They started those films in 1997 and finished them all in 2004, I suppose that last year was reserved for the DVD and marketing since the last film was released in 2003.
It's worth noting though that Tokien wrote the books over the course of 12 years. Well, I'm drawing the whole thing, John Ronald Reuel, how ‘bout dat.
Today is the Vernal Equinox. The first day of Spring.
Recently, a video game came out called Hogwarts Legacy and I love it almost as much as I love Gustave Dore lithographs. Even though it's a huge passion of mine, this blog isn't at all about my love of video games (or 19th Century Art for that matter). I only bring it up because to some this game represents evil incarnate; and their histrionic rambling temper tantrum could be seen all over Twitter. There was a much publicized boycott of the game, the reason for which is due to a perceived slight by JK Rowling herself, not the creators of the game, but the author of the intellectual property it is based upon.
I'm not really a big Harry Potter fan. I read the books in college, starting at Book 5 after going with a friend to see Movie 4. I started right in the middle, arguably just as the story was getting good. I eventually went back and read them all, and even joined the masses feverishly waiting in epically long lines for the release of Book 7. I read it - twice - and enjoyed it thoroughly. At the time, and perhaps even now, I think it was like our generation's Lord of the Rings, but obviously with more modern fanfare and flourish. It took a hundred years to make Lord of the Rings into a movie after all.
Lord of the Rings, of course, is a far better story. As the podcaster Robert Evans once described the dichotomy (I’m paraphrasing because I couldn’t find the episode): "Lord of the Rings is about a hobbit with no magical powers or special attributes - the least among us - that takes on the heaviest of all burdens and sacrifices everything to save the world. Whereas Harry Potter is: Magic Boy with Magic Blood - a typical Chosen One story."
I have to agree with that. Frodo's sacrifice is heartbreaking and heroic in all the right ways, and Gandalf is far more of a wizard than Dumbeldore could ever dream. Not one line from Harry Potter compares to Gandalf’s simple sanguine words to Frodo in the Mines of Moria.
Despite this, Harry Potter is a great story. It's not just about Special Boy with Special Blood - for most of the story, Harry doesn't even know he's special or chosen. He lives underneath the staircase in his aunt's house, hidden away from the world due to embarrassment. His crazy parents thought they were wizards after all. Madness!
It's also adorably British. That's perhaps my favorite thing about the story; I could read about magical boarding school students eating kidney pies with bangers and mash while drinking butter beer all day - and have.
One of the issues with the outrage towards the game is that it's a bad look for the Trans Activists themselves. It's trivializing the movement itself by being so focused on a video game launch. Millions upon millions of people love Harry Potter. Where is the outrage for the attraction at Universal Studios? There was a Wizarding World movie released *last year* and I saw none of this ridiculousness. Why isn't Jude Law cancelled? He played hot young gay Dumbeldore! The travesty!
Gita Jackson said the game was “boring.” Girlfriend Reviews said it was “aggressively mediocre.” Jason Schrier said the story was "dull." I’m not even going to get into the nonsense that came from the magazine formerly known as Wired.
None of them would have said this if they weren’t just trying to be seen as "cool" and an "ally." They're just politically posturing and they bring shame to the profession of journalism.
So, why is the game bad? They don't know! Group think authoritarianism and a hatred of plurality is my best guess. But all this has seemed to calm down - especially after the game has sold 12 million copies (more copies in Europe than Elden Ring), made a billion dollars in revenue, received record amounts of good reviews, and might single handedly revive the entire Harry Potter franchise. So, good job, slacktivists. You really showed them.
It doesn’t have to be this way. After the game came out and the Internet rhetoric kind of died down, a little podcast came along entitled: The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. It’s not necessarily a defense of Rowling so much as an exposé on the entire argument, covering both sides. I highly encourage you to listen to it. It’s not just Rowling digging her heels into TERF Mountain, it’s also Contrapoints making a riposte, people from the trans community expressing their lived experience, and an often overlooked insight into how this might be a particularly British problem.
The best thing about the podcast is that it shows how much of a giant misunderstanding this all is and how we should always remember our common humanity. Going with the worst possible take and seeing each other in the worst possible light all the time is a unique product of the Internet age, but it is not evil to have a difference of opinion about something that affects yourself as well as others. Women have just as many rights as the nonbinaries - in so many ways women are the original oppressed group; and perhaps in all their pearl clutching and freak outs, the Internet mob could spare a moment to listen to them. Criticism isn’t the same thing as bigotry. Lest we forget the very next line Gandalf says:
"There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of Evil."
